Perspectives On Drug Discovery & Development

Drug discovery and development is very complex, time consuming and costly process which requires large number of collaboration of individuals and groups from various departments such as research, development, formulation, medical, marketing and business management.

Drug discovery defined as the process of identifying molecules that have the potential to become the applicable new treatment approach. This drug discovery involves the sequential steps which consists of – target selection, drug selection and product development. Target Selection involves choosing a disease to treat and then developing a model for that disease.

Common Ways of Developing New Drugs:

1. From Natural Sources e.g. Plants and animals

2. By modification of chemical structure of existing molecules

3. Studying disease processes

4. By using Computer-Aided Drug Discovery approach to design new drugs

5. Serendipity

Different Approaches Used in Drug Discovery Process:

1. Identification of novel path that involves with disease, selection of targets in that path and development of screens.

2. High throughput screening of large number of compounds for desired biological activity.